About EU-PROMENS

EU-PROMENS is a capacity-building programme on mental health financed by the EU4Health programme and will be implemented by the project consortium (GFA Consulting Group GmbH, Trimbos Institute, and Mental Health Europe) between January 2024 and December 2026. It will enhance and improve the capacity of health professionals across Europe in the field of mental health. The programme implements flagship 15 ‘Initiative For More And Better Trained Professionals in the EU’ of the Commission’s Communication on a comprehensive approach to mental health.

It targets different groups of professionals, including:

1. Health professionals working in mental health sector
2. Teachers and educators working in the educational setting
3. Social workers working in various community settings
4. Professionals working in prisons and juvenile detention centres
5. Mental health policy makers and experts/advisors
6. Members of the service users/people with lived experience organisations
7. Trainers and mentors of students, apprentices, and the workforce of the above-mentioned professions

The capacity-building programme is made up of two parts:

Part 1
Development and Implementation of a Multidisciplinary Training Programme on Mental Health for Health and Other Professionals Working in Community Settings

• Setting up a contact group for broad stakeholder involvement representing different sub-groups of mental health
• Conducting a study to identify the training audiences and training needs in mental health 
• Mapping existing trainings and stakeholders
• Designing a European mental health multidisciplinary training programme
• Rolling out a hybrid, multidisciplinary training programme in 6 pilot countries, and implementation of the training in 24 countries
• Developing a European blueprint for a comprehensive approach to mental health capacity-building

Part 2
Organisation of an Exchange Programme for Health Professionals in the Field of Mental Health

• Identifying exchange participants' needs, host institutions' capabilities, and matching both
• Designing and implementing the exchange programme, ensuring it aligns with the overall goals of the multidisciplinary training programme on mental health

Involvement of participating countries

• Organisation of hybrid workshops for the training in 27 EU Member States, Norway, Iceland and Ukraine with at least 3600 participants and in collaboration with national institutions.
• Organisation of exchange visits between countries with a minimum of 900 participants. Identification of national host organisations as well as participants from all countries.

Scope

Geographic scope: EU-PROMENS covers 27 EU Member States, Norway, Iceland and Ukraine.

Professional scope: The EU-PROMENS concept of ‘mental health’ refers not only to the absence of mental health conditions that can cause psychological distress and impair the daily functioning of an individual or increase the risk of self-harm. It also refers to the provision of support to protect and promote the mental health and mental wellbeing of individuals, especially for vulnerable groups and those experiencing crisis situations. It is following the European Commission Comprehensive Approach to Mental Health.

The overall aim of our programme is to support the promotion of a comprehensive, prevention-oriented approach to mental health as a public health issue, through capacitybuilding and multidisciplinary trainings of health professionals and other professionals working at community level in multiple settings and covering the life-course of an individual (e.g. health and care services, schools and educational settings, social care services, community care for the elderly, prisons and juvenile detention facilities, job centres, youth centres, etc.).
The multidisciplinary dimension of our activites stems from the need to look at mental health from a comprehensive perspective, requiring a coordinated approach across different public sectors, such as health, education, social affairs and other relevant sectors, through a life-course approach addressing needs of different age groups as well as factoring in the gender aspect and in line with a mental health-in-all-policies approach.

EU-PROMENS Factsheet in all available languages:

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